


Let the Water Take Me

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Ancestral Nights [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia, Ancestor-Era, Dark, Depression, Drowning, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Fate & Destiny, First Meetings, Ocean, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've known since you were a wiggler that one night Meenah Peixes will set you free. You've known for almost as long that your death will only draw her further into the trap of your Master's schemes. And it only took one sweep in your Master's active service before it occurred to you that she is the only other troll in the universe who will live as long as you, with all the loneliness and loss that implies.</p><p>It would take a far stronger person than you will ever be to <em>not</em> love and pity her a little, if only in the abstract.</p><p>(You will destroy her anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Water Take Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burgundyrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgundyrose/gifts).



> Dear Burgundyrose, thank you for including the link to [your fanmix](http://8tracks.com/burgundyrose/shared-servitude); it was very inspiring!

You come to with warm sand against your right side and a terrible, racking pain in your chest. A pair of seabirds scream insults at each other overhead, and down by your feet, the soft, incessant shush of waves laps against the shore. The heavy sense of peace that you always feel in the last guttering moments before the universe goes black still lingers, but you think an afterlife would probably hurt either more or less than this.

You open your eyes. The mark of your Master's conditionally-bestowed power rekindles in coruscating rainbow sparks as you blink salt and sand out of your vision.

You survived. Again.

It's not exactly a disappointment -- you can't be disappointed if you don't have any hope -- but you just came from murdering a string of limebloods a thousand sweeps ago and destroying a scienterrorist equally far in the future who wanted to develop an alternative to helmsblock technology. You aren't as deadened to your duties as you know you'll eventually become. You needed to stop for a while.

"Hey," a rough voice says, a little too loud and a little too close. "You feeling any betta? You breathed a lot of water before I hauled you to the surface and I got no clue if I managed to pound it all back out."

You take a breath to answer, then double over in a coughing fit. Someone's hand thumps you awkwardly between your shoulders until you spit frothy, bloodstained water out of your burning lungs. You draw another breath, wait for it to burn, and relax subtly when your body doesn't protest. You roll onto your back and stare up at the green glow of your home and prison, scarcely moved from where it hung when you flew out over the ocean, pockets weighted with stones, and let yourself plummet.

"I'm still alive. So no."

"Fuck, gill, that's no way to look at things," the voice says. A face moves into your field of vision: a young troll, staring downward through tyrian eyes still streaked with wiggler gray, her concern inexpertly tucked behind a façade of careless pride. "Yeah, you're a landcrawler, and a rustie at that, but we're young! Also strong and gorgeous and look, you efin have super-fancy psionics! The world's our oyster." She flicks a tangle of salt-stiff hair over her shoulder and smiles at you, all shark-tooth brashness and no understanding of limitations.

You recognize her, of course.

You've known since you were a wiggler that one night Meenah Peixes will set you free. You've known for almost as long that your death will only draw her further into the trap of your Master's schemes. And it only took one sweep in your Master's active service before it occurred to you that she is the only other troll in the universe who will live as long as you, with all the loneliness and loss that implies.

It would take a far stronger person than you will ever be to _not_ love and pity her a little, if only in the abstract.

But a promise and a symbol aren't the same as a living, breathing person. You never realized, in your youthful dreams of escape, how small she would be. You only thought about her promised power, not how graceful her horns would look despite their stubby youthful proportions, how the mix of pink and green moonlight would caress the sharp bones beneath her skin, how the soaked and reef-torn scraps of antlerbeast hide she wears for a dress would emphasize her hips and shoulders. You never realized she would seem fragile, or precious.

You think you ought to hate her for interrupting your latest suicide attempt, but you know that you would have survived even if she hadn't. The only difference her rescue made was to shorten your snatched moments of oblivion before the contract of conditional mortality dragged you back. And you think it might count as comfort to wake to another troll's concern rather than your Master's gloating or your teacher's indifference.

(It's hard to be certain. You have so little experience with pleasure.)

Meenah's smile starts to turn down at the edges and you realize she's still waiting for you to answer. You have also been staring. That's probably not a good first impression.

"The world may be your oyster, but never mine," you tell her. "I have nothing of my own and never will. It's better that way. Anything I hold, my Master can take away. But if I hold nothing..." Well. You're still not sure if that's more a victory for him or for you. Either way, emptiness hurts less.

Meenah puffs herself up in indignation. "Master? Water you talkin' about? This is my territory. I clammed it myself, and I don't want anemone masters around here except me. Take me to yours and I'll krill him for you, rustie. Then I'll show you some reel fin until you remember some raysons not to off yourself, maybe nab you some shinies along the way."

She's completely missed the point.

And yet, nobody has ever tried to make you happy before. Even the hornless yellow alien who killed your teacher at the universe's end didn't stay to see the results of your fruitless escape. You wonder if she pities you.

You've always assumed you look pitiful rather than pitiable -- you so rarely see the point in eating or keeping up appearances -- but there is no accounting for taste.

Still, it's best not to leave Meenah laboring under too many misapprehensions. You slowly lever your torso upright until you're meeting her eyes on the same level. Your right horn aches from where the weight of your head ground it into the sand, and your ribs scream from the strain of too much coughing. You conceal the pain with practiced ease.

"I don't have to take you anywhere," you say. "My Master is already here."

Meenah jerks backward and looks around wildly, a three-pronged, double-headed trident made of driftwood and splintered coral appearing in her right hand. "The fuck?" she says when the beach remains empty of any sentient life except the two of you. "You gone crazy, gill?"

"His name is Death," you say. "I am his handmaid, until such time as another willingly takes my place."

"O- _kay_ ," Meenah says. Her raised eyebrows make it clear she doesn't believe you. You find that you don't mind at all. You told her the truth; it's her choice to accept or not. Let her keep her ignorance for as long as she can. In the end, her fate is as constrained as your own despite all the power she'll come to possess.

(It's pointless to protect her. She will be a mass-murderer, a callous dictator, a disastrous wreck of a person. You will guide her into some of those choices. Others she'll make on her own.

You don't care. It's not as if you're any better. And at least one of you should get a few sweeps of innocence.)

"He won't care what we do here and now, so long as I carry out his will when it matters," you say. "So what do you consider fun?"

Meenah's eyebrows stay up for a long second. Then she shrugs and makes her trident disappear. "Anything! This beach is as far from my brooding cavern as anyone I know has ever swum and it's all mine, a whole night's swim in all directions. I take shells and pearls south to a little clade camp to trade for clothes and stuff. We could go there if you wanna sea other people. Or we could go exploring! I think there's another brooding cavern to the north, because I've found old campfires in that direction. I wanna sea who lit them -- I think it'd be cool to meet a bunch of strangers. And then I wanna keep going. My lusus says the world is round like a pearl and if you swim far enough, you come back to where you started. I bet it takes a whole sweep to do that!"

She is drastically underestimating the size of the world. She is also drastically underestimating the danger of other trolls. It's akin to a miracle that her native brooding cavern and its environs haven't suffered from the endemic raids that are sweeping the rest of the planet: generations of paranoia and reprisals growing a crop that no one will ever manage to eradicate. Your handiwork, of course, even if you haven't done most of it yet in your subjective timeline.

You wonder if sparing Meenah's childhood home will be your choice or a directive from your Master. Or perhaps it truly is a coincidence. The rocky isthmus that separates this southern peninsula from the rest of the great continent doesn't present a tempting prospect for more land-based cultures, and seadwellers are still a rare mutation at this point in the past.

"Why invite me along?" you ask.

Meenah flushes, a hint of pink shading over her cheekbones where the skin is thinnest. "Why do I need a rayson? What if I just want to?"

"I won't kill myself if you leave me alone," you say.

"I'm not worried aboat that!" Meenah protests. "I just-- I dunno. You're my age. You have neat powers. You're pretty and you have cool hair. And you were smiling while you drowned but it was all weird and empty, and I wanna sea if I can make you smile because you're happy instead."

She will, one night. But you can't tell her that. Not yet. Here and now, she still thinks life is its own reward.

You want to see her again, even after your Master inevitably calls you away. You will have to convince him that a relationship with Meenah won't derail either of your fates, and the best way to do that is nudge her toward empire yourself.

"You said this beach is your territory," you say. "Will you relinquish it when you go exploring?"

Meenah shrugs. "I never thought aboat it. Does that matter? Nobody else wants to live here, so I can take it back whenever I want."

"But what if someone else does move in while you're gone? What if they won't respect that you lived here first?"

"Then I'll krill them, like I'm gonna krill your master somenight," Meenah says blithely. "What's mine stays mine. And hey, maybe I'll clam some moray territory as we go, set up places where you'll be safe from the basshole who's convinced you he's a god."

It's a kind thought, mixed with the youthful arrogance and careless disregard for other people that you'll have to foster over the sweeps, to ensure she warps your people and planet into the shape that will produce your Master's required outcome. You can't let her have any chance to overcome her flaws.

(You will always be able to pity her for the weakness you yourself are inducing. You think perhaps you should feel guilty for that. But you lost guilt to numbness before you were nine sweeps old.)

"My Master's reach covers the entire world," you say. "But thank you for the thought. I would like to travel with you and see the world through your eyes. When should we start?"

Meenah beams. "Aw yeah, this is gonna be awesome! And why not start now? I mean, if you feel up to walking. Or if you don't mind letting me kelp you swim. I promise I won't let you drown."

"I accept your promise," you say, and apply a touch of psionics to raise yourself to your feet. As sand slithers off the fabric of your drying lime-green dress, you offer one empty hand in a greeting gesture from a far future time. "My name is Damara Megido. I think we'll spend a lot of time together from now on."

"Meenah Peixes," she says, and instead of shaking hands, she pulls you in for an impulsive hug.

(It would be so easy to slip a knife into her heart and save her from her fate. But you want your own freedom too much to change the game. Time spins on undisturbed, weaving itself to your Master's will.)

You walk away from the ocean together.


End file.
